


if you come around again

by dreamingbackwards



Category: The Avengers (2012)
Genre: M/M, Suicide, a fix-it that breaks things more
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-09-03
Updated: 2012-09-03
Packaged: 2017-11-13 10:41:39
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,954
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/502642
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dreamingbackwards/pseuds/dreamingbackwards
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Fortunately, Phil Coulson is alive. Unfortunately, Clint Barton is not aware of this.</p>
            </blockquote>





	if you come around again

**Author's Note:**

> Heed the tags. Apparently, I only write things that make notaredshirt really sad.  
> I listened to 'The Chain' by Ingrid Michaelson while writing this, if you like a theme song for your fics.

The past three months have been interminable.

Phil woke up for the first time in a haze of medication and groaned, realizing that while yes, he wasn't dead, everything hurt. He did the logical thing and tried to fall back asleep. Tried not to think of everything that must have happened in his absence, because thinking raised questions, and if anyone else had died, Phil wasn't ready to know just yet.

His body healed. It took time. It took breathing exercises for the punctured lung. It took physical therapy for the sliced muscles. It took drugs, lots of drugs, for the pain. But finally, three months later, Phil can walk the length of the hall without needing to sit down for a breather, and the doctors have declared him fit to leave. Even Directory Fury had signed off, telling Phil it was "about time the Avengers had a voice of reason", which meant something along the lines of 'yes, you can go see Barton, get out of my office, Coulson'. Phil knows Fury missed him.

Finally, the three-month stint in a tiny patient room is over. Phil can get back to his life, to Natasha and Sitwell and Hill, to TiVO and plotless reality shows, and most of all, to Clint. It's what he's been waiting for this past quarter of a year, finally seeing Clint. He knew he'd probably end up with a broken nose at best, at least the first time they spoke, but Phil can't say he'd act differently. Not under circumstances like these. 

Nevertheless, he can't say he's anything less than excited by the time SHIELD's car pulls up to Stark Tower. It's late in a Wednesday afternoon, and a thin grey mist hangs over the city. It doesn't change the fact that the familiar, ostentatious entrance may be the most beautiful thing he's ever seen- and if he's thinking things like that, Phil knows he's been away far too long. He hopes his faked death didn't leave a bigger wound with Clint or Natasha than he could patch up. (Stark, he knows, will have buried any grief in alcohol, Banner barely knew Phil in the first place, and Rogers will have heroically shouldered the terrible ache Phil's absence created until he could work past it. Or he would have just had a frown on the rare occasion Coulson may have crossed his mind. He didn't know Phil very long either.)  
\---  
To leave a note or not to leave a note?, Clint wonders, sitting on the edge of the roof. He's always liked to come up here and swing his legs off the edge. It helps him think. 

He twirls the pistol around his index finger, Billy the Kid-style. Clint knows he can't use any of his usual gear for this. For one, he's not that flexible, and for two, he's not really Hawkeye anymore. Hawkeye sees enemies coming and puts metal between their eyes. Clint most assuredly does not. Did not. Not when it counted, anyway. 

But the note. The note is what's important right now, Clint, focus. Are we leaving one or not?

He considers it for a long moment, stroking the barrel of the pistol. Nah. No note. Natasha will know, she can tell the other Avengers. And the only other person that matters, well, he isn't exactly available by post.   
\---  
Just getting into the tower is a problem all its own. As soon as Phil steps into the view of the cameras in the lobby, the Avengers are there, demanding to know what he is and why he's pretending to be Phil. The sheer level of pissedoffedness apparent in Stark and Rogers is nearly heartwarming. The two hours it takes to convince them (he had no idea Jarvis was capable of DNA scans, or he would have asked about that first) are not, especially considering how Clint is noticeably absent. 

Phil waits to ask. He sees Natasha staying back at the edges of the group, but he still holds off. They'll let him know what he needs to know. Phil is fairly sure he can trust the people who fought off an alien invasion and a demigod in his name, after all, and Thor is very much enjoying the celebratory drinks Stark is concocting. He's never been one to get in the way of a happy buzz in the off-hours, and they are, after all, drinking to his health. It may be bad luck to stop them.  
\---  
The only question left is how to get it done. 

Clint has the gun, an old pistol that was the very first gun he learned to shoot, and there's a nice kind of poetry in ending his career like that. However, he's also on the roof of Stark Tower, and it seems like a shame to let the drama in that option go to waste. But he's not interested in traumatizing the public. Plus, Stark Tower is pretty much made of windows, and there would be a chance that Tony or Thor would see him falling and swoop in for a catch at the last second. That would lead right back to the therapists at SHIELD, and Clint is so tired of lying to them. They just want to help, but he's past helping. 

Phil's ring is back in his room. Fury found it in Phil's locker, he returned it to Clint after he'd finished getting checked out by medical. If Phil died without his on, so will Clint- he's got his strung on the chain with Phil's. It's more of that poetry he likes. Or maybe symmetry. One of the two.

He twirls the barrel around his finger again, three times exactly, perfect, untouched loops. He likes the control he has over his body. Not once in the past three months has it abandoned him. It's done the best it could to keep Clint functioning, sleeping dreamlessly, not letting his appetite disappear, not making him tired all the time like the therapists said it might. No, Clint's body has known exactly what they were going to do from the moment Clint heard the news, and it's done it's best to keep away suspicion until the time was right for them to move. And now it is. 

With a sigh, Clint hoists his legs back onto the roof and sits, knees pulled up against his chest, against a wall. His windbreaker makes noise  as he shifts around, getting comfortable for the last time.   
\---  
Finally, Natasha rolls her eyes at Stark. "If you'll excuse us, I have a few things I need to talk to my zombie handler about." 

"Come on, sweetheart, you can't make the rebirthday boy leave his own party-"

Natasha doesn't bother listening, she simply puts a hand on Phil's shoulder and guides him into the elevator, jabbing at a button for one of the upper floors. "We need to talk about Clint."

Her harsh tone puts Phil on edge. "Is he okay?"

"Coulson, you know the toll it would've taken on you if he died, and you don't have his..." She makes a waving motion that Phil assumes means something like 'various neuroses'. "He hasn't been the same, and I'm worried."

Phil isn't exactly pleased. He'd hoped Clint would be okay, that his years of experience in losing people would help him get over Phil. "Hasn't been the same? Hasn't been the same as in what?" The logical part of Phil's mind starts listing off things like 'trouble sleeping, withdrawing...' All of the usual symptoms of grief. 

"He spends more time on the roof than in the tower, he won't look me in the eye, he doesn't joke over the comms," Natasha lists off, and for a moment the usual mask of control slips away. Phil can actually see the concern, not just hear it, and that's what unsettles him most. "I know it's not much, but it's enough."

"Where is he now?"

Natasha's "I think he's on the roof again" blends with Jarvis' "Master Barton left for the roof an hour ago, Agent Coulson."  
\---  
Clint breathes in, breathes out. Lets his finger relax on the trigger, starts to tense- 

No. It's not going to happen like this.

 Clint can't do this with a blank slate in his head, he need to focus. What was it the therapists said? 'You can only start healing once you find the source of your pain.' Well, Clint knows exactly what his is, and he needs a memory. He needs something beautiful, something that has torn him apart every time he's thought about it, something that still makes him close off. Not much does that after three months of reverie, but he thinks he's got one that can do.  
\---  
It's a lazy Sunday morning, both of them on medical leave- Clint for cracked ribs and Phil for completely imagined injuries. It isn't often that they get time together where they know they're one hundred percent off-call. Clint is lying on his good side, soaking in the muffled summer sun from the window while Phil strokes his arm. It's the welcome, absentminded touch of someone who's done the same thing a thousand times, and the thought makes Clint disproportionately happy. 

"Wouldn't it be nice if it could be like this forever?"

Phil noses at Clint's bicep and presses down a kiss. "It'd be a good way to spend eternity, I think," he says, before scooting up to stick his head on the pillows and pull Clint's arm around his waist. 

"What if it could?" Clint presses. "Just imagine it. No SHIELD, no supervillains, no crazy work schedule. We'd have regular jobs. I could teach at an archery camp, and you could... I don't know, fix the US government."

"I think that's beyond even me," Phil tells him, looking into Clint's eyes. "But I like where you're going with this."

"Come on, Phil, nothing is beyond your bureaucromancy and you know it." Phil's face stays serious, and Clint sighs. "Fine. Back to fantasyland. We'd have an awesome little house. And pets. And neighbors that we could actually talk about our jobs with, and we wouldn't have government-issue weapons in our bedroom, and we'd have barbecues and we wouldn't even know Stark," he says, and as soon as Phil smiles Clint has to go in for a kiss. "Doesn't it sound great?"

"It sounds great, yes. But you're an adrenaline junkie, and I have a pathological need to feel like my job actively helps people, and I don't think it would ever really happen."

Clint frowns. "Maybe you have a pathological need to kill my buzz. Come on, just pretend to play along?"

"Alright," Phil says, stroking an imaginary beard as he thinks. "We could live in Massachusetts, get a little place near a beach. I'd work at a library. You could do your archery camp in the summer, and work at a shooting range in the off-season..."

"Massachusetts? You're a closet liberal, aren't you? I knew it!" Clint crows. "I bet you faked the medical orders for the veganism thing, and I bet you did animal rights marches in your teens-"

"We could get married there."

"-and you probably donate to the Obama campaign- Wait. You want- well, hypothetically, you would want to... to do that? With me?"

"I think that's what I said, yes," Phil tells him in his Agent voice, his In Control Of Everything  voice, and why would Phil be nervous?

"...I could maybe be okay with that."

Phil holds up a finger and scoots his top half off the bed, digging through the puddle of his clothes on the floor. 

"Oh, Phil, you old romantic," Clint says, rolling his eyes. "You sure know how to set a mood." 

When Phil comes back up, he's got a tiny blue box, and he's saying "Shut up, Clint," with a smile. "And don't panic." 

"Tiny boxes mean rings. Rings are a perfectly good reason to panic," Clint points out in a thready voice. "Are you actually, seriously proposing to me, Phil? Because you, of all people, have got to understand how terrible an idea that is. You've read my file, you know that I've got more issues than National Geographic-"

"Can I at least do the proposing before you turn me down?"

Clint nods, trying to get the frantic beat of his heart under control. "Okay, yeah, do your thing. I'll just... I'll be here. Listening. Yeah."

"Thank you," Phil says, and the Agent In Charge tone is back. "Clint Barton," he says, taking Clint's hand, "I know that you think you're not worth it. I know that you make stupid jokes at inappropriate times. I even know that you were checking out my sister during Christmas, and I still love you, so do you finally understand that no, I'm not kidding, and no, I'm not leaving?"

It takes a minute for the words to fully process, but eventually Clint manages a robotic nod. He doesn't think he can trust his voice right now, not for anything serious, and he doesn't want to start panicking again and let Phil realize just how bad an idea this is. He can't scare him away, not now.

Phil seems to understand. He pulls Clint in for a soft, sweet kiss that helps wash the worry away, and he pulls the ring out of the box. "Will you marry me?"

"Well, gosh. I'm feeling like a cheap fiancé right about now, getting proposed to in bed. Not even a clean bed, considering what we did last night." Not quite the calm, mature 'yes, I love you, how could I say no' that Clint was aiming for, but it gets the job done.

Phil's grin is contagious. "Does that mean- is that a yes?"

Cracked ribs or no, Clint can't resist rolling half on top of Phil and giving him a kiss. "Yes, I'm saying yes. I'm saying you have no idea what you're getting into, but I'm saying yes." 

They only break apart for the second it takes for Phil to slip the skinny gold ring on Clint's finger.   
\---  
His hand steadies.   
\---  
Natasha reacts to the muffled thump before Phil does, hitting the stop button once the elevator reaches the next floor, running for the stairs to the roof. Phil can't quite run yet. He trails behind in a strained power walk, and it speaks volumes that he manages to push open the door only five minutes after Natasha. Looks like he's more healed up than the doctors thought. 

The grey, chilly mist is thicker up here. It looks like Natasha is standing frozen on a landscape that doesn't really exist, like the pair of them are in a dream where someone forgot to imagine the background. The noises from the street are muffled by distance. It's peacefully quiet, but Phil's gut still twists with a painful sense of wrongness. 

Natasha twists, looking back at him with the blankest face Phil has ever seen. Not even a trained agent, not even a god, could see a flicker of anything. It's impressive. She flicks her gaze to something past her, then back to Phil. A tiny thread of urgency pushes at her mask, breaks through porcelain, and Phil staggers over to see what she keeps looking at. 

Each step makes the picture clearer. A low wall- the side of a stubby shed, maybe- and someone leaning back against it lazily, maybe asleep. Someone with almost-blond hair and an ancient black windbreaker, and Phil can't help breaking into a grin. It's so Clint, taking a nap on the roof while his husband comes back from the dead four floors down. Even as he braces for the inevitable right hook, the broken nose, the yelling, Phil can't stop grinning, because Clint is here. Maybe in rough shape, maybe angry and lonely and rightfully so, but he's here, and Phil has spent three months dreaming of this moment-

He runs the last few feet, new lung be damned, and he yanks the gun out of Clint's hand, throws it behind him, sits and tugs Clint close and sees the halo of blood smearing, dripping down the wall, blood and- and hair, and bone, no no no no no, this isn't how it was supposed to be, Clint was strong, he was, and he was going to be fine and whole and so, so angry, but not this. Not this. 

"Ha ha ha, Clint, joke's over. Come on, wake up," Phil pleads. He strokes his hair, down his cheek, the little spot in his neck that's so ticklish it can rouse him from deep, pre-hangover sleep. "Wake up. Wake up, Clint, I'm home. This is your cue to hit me and ask how the hell I could do this to you." 

Natasha creeps over and crouches next to the pair of them, takes ahold of Clint's hand. "Barton, if you don't stop right now, I'm telling Coulson everything that happened in Budapest. Including the chocolate bullet incident," she says, but there's no threat in her voice. Just something soft and gentle and hopeless. 

Phil has never liked living in delusion. He likes facts. He likes order and reason and things he can use to plan, so he takes a deep breath and lets his fingers trip up, trail over the crown of his head, over the silly, spiky, overly gelled hair, down, and that. That is not some fucked-up stage makeup, not some sick idea of a joke, not something where Clint could pop back up and say "how the hell do you like it when your husband dies, you lying bastard". 

That's just blood on Phil's fingers, and the quiet, broken sounds he makes is all he can say.


End file.
